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Rule-following is Judaism with its 613 commandments, not Christianity. Much ink was spilled in the New Testament about how true religion is a spiritual orientation toward God and not following rules to the letter (the flesh of the letter which worketh death is contrasted to the spirit of the law which is fulfilled in Christ). People do certainly want to understand their place in the Universe and who to trust, and this Christianity attempts to answer comprehensively. I would note, though, that news sites for the irreligious function the same way, where the news du jour takes on existential importance and much E-Ink is spilled on who is the most trustworthy anonymous source in news. If not news, then scientists and sciencism, with its illusion that the fullness of an ocean can be understood by analyzing the contents of a bucket.
And yet, Paul basically recreated standards of conduct for the Corinthians when they reached precisely this conclusion (the Law was superseded, they were saved so they didn't need to behave)
I'm not denying that there is a difference between Islam/Judaism and Christianity in terms of nomos.
But I think it should also be considered just how much of that is just aeons of religious polemic. First against Jews since Christianity's split and Jesus' significance (when the Law already saves) had to be explained. Then it was having to fight the Catholic Church. This provided an incentive to overestimate how burdensome nomistic religions are.
In terms of day to day life it's debatable that pre-secular Christianity didn't place significant enough boundaries on behavior or provide a roadmap for most people. If anything, Christian behavioral - if not ritual- standards were higher than the standards of the pagans they replaced.
Consider three approaches to a marriage:
"My marriage feels good, and that's why I'm in it. Being together makes me feel good, so I try to be together, and maybe that involves doing things she likes, if they're not too much of a drag. But if what I want and what she wants diverges, I'm going with what I want, and if she doesn't like it, she can go find someone else."
"My marriage is a contractual obligation with clearly defined responsibilities and benefits. I fulfill my responsibilities and am entitled to my benefits. I tell my wife I love her three (3) times a day, spend a minimum of one hour each day engaging in social interaction with her, take care of my hare of the chores, work my job, offer flowers and presents on the appropriate holidays. In exchange, she holds up her end. Beyond this, my life is my own to do with as I please, and her feelings are more or less irrelevant."
"Our marriage is about serving, and supporting each other. I try to please her, she tries to please me. If we can't agree on what to do, we find a compromise. We each have a responsibility to manage our desires, to want our mate and their happiness over our own, to prioritize the other over the self."
The first approach is "I do what I want", and it fails because people are selfish and often want bad things.
The second is analogous to a rules-based approach. It fails because no set of rules is ever actually sufficient to constrain human will: malicious compliance is still compliance, and self-interested interpretation and loophole hunting are always available options.
The third is attempting to align the will with the ends sought. There is no set of discrete, granular rules that ensure a good marriage, nor can one simply do as one pleases. Good marriages come when "having a good marriage" is treated as an end to be actively pursued, rather than a means for some other goal like selfish gratification. Whenever rules are treated as an end in themselves, they fail. When they are treated as a means to an end, they can succeed.
I don't think I've ever heard a Muslim state something like this growing up.
This actually sounds like a highly (and Allah forgive me for uttering this word) liberal worldview. "It's not God's business what you do in X past Y" was a staple of early 2000s atheist rhetoric, but would be utterly blasphemous to most devout believers.
What makes you think that members of the more nomistic faiths believe that the purpose is to close out all malicious compliance and loophole abuse? Is it just that they don't see this problem, or the entire theory simply doesn't accurately map to how they view the world?
This seems like one of those arguments that's devastating from within Christianity but not other views - like the "well, no one can truly earn righteous" one.
Practical examples are not hard to find. Have you heard of bubble porn? I've been plagued by similar delusive desires to have my cake and eat it too. It's a very human failure mode, not at all confined to any particular worldview.
I'm not really familiar with the term "nomistic", but going from context... I think that confusing the rules for the ends the rules aim for is a basic failure mode of human thought. I see it absolutely everywhere, in the secular world and the religious, in a variety of cultures and faiths, including various branches of Christianity. The case of particular strains of Judaism comes easily at hand because it's used as the go-to example in the bible, old and new testaments alike. I don't claim that particular strains of Judiasm or Islam have this problem; I don't know enough about them to make that claim. I suspect that at least some do, as some branches of Christianity do, because it seems to be a very easy mistake to make. And if some religion doesn't see it as a mistake, but asserts it as basic truth, I think they're just flatly wrong.
Fair point. I would say that, theologically, such things would probably not be looked kindly upon when I was growing up but that doesn't mean it never happens.
Though, a lot of the "problems" I saw with rituals were people who would overweigh in-group markers (e.g. not drinking alcohol) while doing other bad shit moreso than something like bubbleporn.
I just meant religions with law codes like the Torah or Sharia.
That's actually the site of a bit of a debate. Just how much Judaism actually fits the hyper-transactional viewpoint* criticized by Christian scholars is one of the questions raised by the New Perspective
Sanders' work actually goes and looks at the sources in Paul's time (since Christians assume Paul must have been responding to some major deviation) and...it was more complicated. As I said, I'm not against there being a distinction, but there are strong incentives for polemics and contentious descriptions of other faiths that they themselves wouldn't necessarily have used ( e.g. your second approach)
* Though there is an argument that it applies more to Islam than Judaism
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In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) after the rise of Islam there was much concern with Christianity's dearth of rules and codes of conduct compared to the ascendant Islam. The belief of the day, which everyone assumed as true, was that the fate of the Empire was directly linked to the proper religious conduct of the people and Emperor. The only logical explanation for the Muslim military's victory over the Empire was Loss of God's Favor. It actually took two centuries before the Roman elite even recognized that Islam existed as a separate distinct religion (the historical record of the Arab's themselves also lacks good evidence of Islam being a fully formed, distinct religion for about 2 centuries after the death of Mohammad, when the very earliest accounts of his life first start appearing. This is not a can or worms I'm trying to open here). Many in the Empire's elite considered them to be Jewish heretic fundamentalists. Either way God obviously let them win so there has to be a reason(s). Multiple attempts to flush out of a more attractive set of personal conduct guidelines and criminal law based on the Old Testament while keeping within the Empires traditions were launched after various military defeats. Its both a very broad subject and one that lacks much satisfying primary sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_law#Middle_Byzantine_period has a very incomplete overview laundered through modern understandings.
Funnily enough, this is a very common (maybe the most common) line in Islamism: Muslims are in an abject state today because, unlike at the peak of their power, they are less devout and hardline.
However, I don't think this would suffice as proof that modern Islam doesn't have pre-existing behavioral prescriptions right?
This is just the most common theme in Abrahamic faiths. There were plenty of Jewish apocalyptic movements that insisted on stricter requirements or more purity. But it didn't mean Judaism didn't have an existing set of prescriptions.
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A big part of Christianity is to turn the soul naturally good, that is, it doesn’t do things out of guilt or “slavery to the law” but because it loves God. As such, these aren’t really behavioral prescriptions. Someone who loves their child and does things for the child naturally is not obeying a mental list of rules, they are being guided by the spirit of love without the involvement of forcing oneself — this is grace. This is how the Christian sees God working in their world, how they see Christ behaving in the world, and what they have faith to receive by worship and prayer — not strenuous effort or rule-following.
Consider 1 Corinthians 13:3: “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
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Traditionally Christianity did not have 613 mitzvot, but it was very much about ‘you are X, you need to do Y and obey spiritual authority Z’.
It may be least rule-based of any ancient religion known, especially in the early days. Colossians 2:16, romans 4:15, and Galatians 4:10 prove that there were no significant rules on holidays or diet. 1 Corinthians 6:12 implies that the religion has an entire spiritual dimension in which nothing is forbidden. Romans 14 strongly suggests that judgment should not be passed on a Christian for earthly things.
Proof text much? Colossians 2:16 goes on into verse 17. Pay attention to your translation, and notice which word isn't present in the Greek. Romans 4:15 is written by the same guy who went on to write chapter 6 of that same book. And Galatians 4:10? I mean, I don't even know if I have a complaint. It's straight impressive how magically you read something into here that isn't remotely present. Like, kudos for whatever kool-aid you've got in your cup. And man, 1 Corinthians 6:12? This guy wrote the previous three verses; what do you make of them? Do they imply that nothing is forbidden? Did you just skip the first part of the chapter of Romans 14, where it indicated the types of things it was talking about, rather than being a free-floating license to do literally anything. I mean, you can't really believe that. You can't really believe that if Paul was standing in front of you right now, and you asked him, "Hey yo, this passage here. This be where it says that it's totes cool to rape, murder, and pillage, right?" that he would say, "Abso-toot-o-lutely! Hop in my ride! We're heading for a rape off right now!"
Remember that the devil can and will quote scripture. ;-)
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Why stop at verse 18 when can study the whole passage
Now in 17, substance means body. Remembered that the fulfillment of the Old is found in Jesus. What’s more, in Christianity there’s a process by which a “child” in Christ becomes an “adult” in Christ. The astute Bible fan would now note that the chapter divisions are a later division. So let’s move on to the continuation of the teachings:
It’s very clear then that the intention is not to focus on the human-made rules and regulations, which are a shadow of the true light of Christ.
Nothing in Romans goes against what I am saying. In Romans 6 we read
Your criticisms are convoluted and purposely opaque. You don’t seem understand that a thing can be bad, and also that hyper-focusing on rules regarding the bad thing can also be bad and ineffectual. If I have a wife whom I love, I may decide on a list of 80 things which a lover does with his wife. And if I hyper-focus on adhering to these 80 things when I am with my wife, then I will never be able to actually love my wife. Those 80 rules or principles may be of some use in diagnosis, but has no use in treatment. To love your wife you must focus on your wife as a person and yourself as a person, and if the love is true then it may line up with the “80 rules” produced. The key distinction is that the treatment is not the diagnosis. This is Christianity in a nutshell: it is not a rules-based religion, but a spirit-based religion. Although there does exist somewhat amorphous criterion for measuring righteousness, the only thing of value is the inner disposition. And this is exposed by Jesus again and again in the Gospel where he breaks letter to perform the spirit
Sure, but you didn't quite notice which word in your translation isn't in the Greek. Once we get that, we'll see how your astute observation here makes more sense.
BZZZZZZT. You added "rules and regulations" here. That's not in there. Do you think the things which are above, where Christ is, include rape, murder, and pillaging?
You quote Romans 6 well, but it seems you have not read it. Are you to sin because you are not under law but under grace? If you are obedient from the heart, what are you obedient to? Great job jumping to 7:6; perhaps check some other translations. Say, what does verse seven say?
Your criticisms are convoluted and purposely opaque. I am not hyper-focusing on anything; I'm just observing that you're hyper-focusing on a few words here and there, completely divorced from the rest of the text.
This is correct, but the letter of what? The spirit of what?
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The didache at a very early date shows a church with authority, holy days, prescriptions for fasting, well regulated prayers, and a strong code of behavior.
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